Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-01-06

form network from tree to tree, which
would seem to present an impossible bar
rier to any living thing. Yet the mount
ed panther-hunters follow their dogs
through this thicket with apparent ease.
The hunter carries rife, q stout rene
or rawhide lasso, a small ak, and a keen,
long biaded hunting knife. With the lat
ter grasped in his right hand, the horse
man cuts his way with sweeping slashes
of the blade through the low hanging
creepers, making an opening so quickly
and surely that the horse is rarely DELAY
ed in his course. The dogs guide the
hunter by their loud baying as soon as a
panther's trail is scented, and so well are
| these dogs trained that the crossing of a
bear or deer on the panther's track, which
is frequent occurrence, never leads the
dog away from the game he had been
sent to follow.
"a panther soon trees after it finds
that the dogs are on its trail, always Sc
lects some large tree as a refuge. When
the dogs reach the tree their bayings
change to a peculiar bark, which an
nOunces to the hunter that the game is
brought to bay. Usually rifle ball dis
lodges the panther, and he leaps or falls
| to the ground, when the dogs at once
attack him. Unless the animal is so
badly wounded as to render it helpless,
between it and the dogs it rarely ends
without one or two of the latter being
torn to pieces, and tho fierce fight to the
death is the exciting part of the hunt.
Sometimes, however, a panther-hunt is
attended by circumstances that give it
a spice of danger to the sportsman that
makes the fight with the dogs at the foot
of the tree child's play in compari-
son."
'Bruse Weston, an old-time Arkansas
hunter, followed his dogs once upon a
panthers trail, and, came up with
them where they had freed the game in
a big oak tree. The foliage was so thick,
and the the shadows so deep in the limb
er that it was sometime before Watson
discovered the panther. It lay between
| two branches forty feet from the ground
and chung so closely to the boughs that
none but the practiced eye of the hunter
would have detected its presence. West
on at once recognized in the crouching
figure panther's cub, and was on the
point of sending a rifie-ball through its
body, when he remembered an offer OF
$40 that someone in the settlements had
mad9 for live panther, and he resolved
to capture this one and secure the
twenty dollars. Taking his lasso from
his pony's saddle, and with his long
knife in his belt for use in an emergency,
he climbed the tree. He reached the
lower branches of the tree, and,
swinging himself from Dough to Dough,
stood just below the cub, which had
raised to its feet and stood with
arehed back looking down at the hEnter.
Weston removed his lassO from his shout
der, and was about to toss it easily over
the young panther's head, when as he
raised his eyes, he saw, crOaching in the
dead branches of a tree which grew near
the oak-so near that the limbs were in
terlaced-an enormous panther, the
mother of the cub, ready for a spring.
She was hardly three PAGES away. With
| out seconds delay Weston stepped from
the branch he was standing On to one
which brought him with the trunk of the
tree between MIN and the old panther.
He was just in time, for at that instant
the mother of the cub leaped on the spot
he had left, and stood gazing with frey
eyes on the hunter, who with one arm
clasped around branch, held in his right
hand his bare knife, as with every breath
he drew he expected to see the enraged
animal spring down upon him.
Standing thus forty feet above the
ground, with only the treacherous footing
of limb a few inches thick, Weston
knew that he was lost unless by tact and
skill he was able to gradually make his
way back to the foot of the tree without
irritating the fierce beast into precipi-
| Eating an attack upon him. Fortunately
the cub left its place higher up and
leaped down to the branch on which it's
mother stood glazing at Weston, who was
almost near enough to her to feel her hot
breath. This movement of the cub dis
traeted the attention of the old panther,
and Weston, sheathing his knife in his
belt, dropped TO a lower limb. The pan
Their noticed the movement, and sprang
to the limb below where she stood, and
prevented Weston from retreating far
liter.
"The dogs all this time were crazy with
excitement at the foot of the tree, and
gnawed at the trunk and tore up the
ground in their frantic anxiety to get at
the game so far above their reach. Yves
ton, seeing that his retreat was cut off,
and not daring to risk struggle with the
panther where the slightest misstep
would dash him headlong to death, re-
turned to his old position in the tree, and
the panther followed him. Keeping, by
d gFGdG elCfG, MS Douy COVeERu by the
trunk of the tree, Weston climbed still
higher, hoping to reach strong creeper
that extended from the upper part of the
oak to a tree a few feet away, believing
that he might let himself by his hands
along the vine to the other tree, by which
he could easily reach the ground. The
| creeper was strongly fastened on the oak,
! and he supposed it was as secure on the
other tree. Weston got as far as the
creeper without the panther showing any
disposition to follow him, but he had lust
seized it and was trying his weight care
fully on it, keeping his eyes on the ami
nal below, when the mother OF the cub
| seemed to be moved with renewed fury,
for she sprang TO branch above, and so
made her way to the outer edge of the
branches toward the top of the tree, evi
| IDENTIFY intending to head the hunter of,
and spring down upon him. Weston saw
what she was intending to do, ard he
knew the struggle, which could have but
one result, was inevitable unless he could
reach the thick branches of the neighbor-
| ing tree by means of the connecting vine
| by the time the panther reached her van
! tage ground above him. He CRASHED
! the creeper and swuDp himself off Of